How Americans talk about health care reform

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Words matter. Competing Diagnoses explores how symbols and stories shape public debates about the American health care system. My goal is not to provide a comprehensive source of information about health care reform—many excellent sites such as the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and Health Affairs already do so. Instead, I focus on how Americans talk about health care reform, and how our choice of language reflects the competing diagnoses providers, payers, and policymakers bring to debates about the Affordable Care Act, malpractice reform, medical error, the future of Medicare, and the recurring shortage of physicians and nurses, to name but a few…

Bob Hackey is a Professor of Health Policy and Management at Providence College, where he has taught since 1999, and is an adjunct fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University. In 2008, he was chosen as the Carnegie/CASE Professor of the Year for the State of Rhode Island by the U.S. Professors of the Year Program. To learn more about his current research or view past publications, please visit his page in the PC Library’s Digital Commons.

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Reviews

Midwest Book Review, December 2012:

"The overuse of anything will cause the public become desensitized to it... [Hackey] believes the idea of a persistent healthcare crisis has hurt the rationality of the debate, and has lost sight of many of the problems that lie at the roots of the problem, and is hurting the push for better reform. Offering a very different perspective on healthcare issues, "Cries of Crisis" is a strong addition to any social issues debate collection, much recommended."